West Ham travel to the Etihad tomorrow to take on a sliding Manchester City team, desperately in need of three points to keep ahead of Liverpool and Southampton in the race for fourth place. West Ham won the reverse fixture earlier in the season with an impressive 2-1 victory at Upton Park, putting together a complete team performance. We spoke with Ben Warner of Read Man City for his thoughts ahead of the game.
Manchester City’s season has fizzled out in the last few months, with their title challenge falling by the wayside. What do you believe the reason is behind this?
It’s probably a mix of things. There seems to be a lack of desire in the team which has led to a lot of the play looking pedestrian and less effective than last season’s. The lack of desire and confidence has also made it more difficult to come back from losing positions like we did last year, and given the intermittent form of the defence this campaign we’re in losing positions in more than is ideal. Take last Sunday’s derby for example: last season I would have been confident we could come back from 2-1 down, but last week I felt like we weren’t getting back into it.
Much like West Ham with Sam Allardyce, City’s dip in form since the turn of the year has raised questions about Manuel Pellegrini’s future. Where do you stand on him, and who would you like to replace him should he be sacked?
It’s a tricky one. On one hand, if the club are confident that Pellegrini can challenge for the title next season (and I mean a serious challenge, to the death) then I’m happy for him to stay until the end of his contract next year. Plus, reports that we’re holding out for Pep Guardiola (whose contract also expires next summer) would suggest that most replacements for Manuel Pellegrini would have to be willing to leave after a year, so if the club are confident in Pellegrini then he should continue, although they need to give him financial backing. On the other hand, waiting a year without guarantees from Guardiola could be stupid, and we may look to replace this summer.
West Ham’s 2-1 win at Upton Park against City earlier in the season bucked our recent trend of being handled by City at each opportunity. Why do you think City failed to break us down that day?
I don’t remember much of that day – I tried to block it out by being on holiday in Barcelona, and it worked – but the problems seemed to be the recurring problems we’ve had for some years now. At times in the season, we end up looking pedestrian and struggle to break teams down, even teams who on paper we should beat. It didn’t help that West Ham were in a good patch then either.
What has changed about Manchester City between then and now?
I’d say we’ve got worse. The season has been petering out for a bit and we’ve looked unimpressive during that period. Still, we’ve had good spells (especially in December) and have broken two of our bogey teams as well. I feel like if we work hard on Sunday, we can get a win, which I’ve been saying for months now but the effort hasn’t been there at times.
Vincent Kompany will miss this game through injury. He’s come under a lot of criticism of late. Is it warranted, or overblown?
I think some of it is warranted, and this is definitely the poorest season of his City career – which is probably partly the reason we’ve been in such bad shape – but I do think some people are going over the top. I’ve seen people say he should be sold or stripped of the captaincy (and then give it to Yaya, which I don’t understand) but I’m still of the belief that this is just a dip in form for him, and once he has a period of recovery he’ll be back to his usual self. The injuries don’t help either.
Wilfried Bony made the big money move to Manchester from Swansea. Why do you think he hasn’t quite hit the ground running, and will he come good, or will he be the next Caicedo/Jo/Santa Cruz?
I don’t think it’s that he “hasn’t quite hit the ground running”, I think it’s more that he hasn’t been given the chance. First he has the Cup of Nations (at least he won that, so it wasn’t a total waste) and then he wasn’t being started, and only managed to get cameos from off the bench. He managed to score in the game before the international break against West Brom, and he’s looked impressive in my eyes. If he hadn’t picked up this injury, we’d be seeing him start more as we’re looking to improve from this bad patch.
Who do you think will be the key to Sunday’s game?
After the derby loss last weekend, there should be a lot of players looking to better themselves and show they’ve still got a place here. The likes of Aguero will be vital, as will players like Mangala, with the defender still yet to win a large proportion of fans over. Silva needs to impress as well, having not had the finest season of his career, and with even him, the magical midfielder, being linked with a move away this week.
Finally, a score prediction from you?
Seeing as we’re at home, and we need a win after last weekend, I’ll go for a 3-1 City win.
